Seamless Transfer Pathways - Transfer Advising Guides (TAGs)

Seamless Transfer Pathways include the most degree-applicable credit hours, saving students time, money, and loss of credit hours; resulting in zero loss.
The Alamo Colleges District, works closely alongside with 35 ISDs, the 5 independently accredited community colleges, and 20 universities within our South & Central Texas Transfer Compact. Currently, ACD offers 957 (957/1,824 = 52.5%) Seamless Transfer Pathways among 16 universities. 957 transfer pathways with zero loss of hours, zero loss, of time, and zero loss of student money. Moreover, with the TAGs, there are an additional 420 pathways provided for students with a 1-3 credit hour loss, totaling 1,377 two year pathways to the university of choice with less than a 3 credit hour loss. Meaning, that 75.5% (1,377/1,824) of all TAGs built and released for student/advisor and faculty use, have less than a 3 hour loss when transferring to one of the universities within our transfer compact reducing the number of excessive credit hours.
The potential average savings for ACD transfer students, based on tuition and fee comparisons on seamless transfer pathways can now be calculated. In looking at the 8,324 students who transferred in 2020, the potential savings for students is a grand total of $374 million for those students who follow an agreed upon TAG for their university of choice.
AlamoINSTITUTES Transfer Advising Guides (TAGs) have been a game changer, allowing transparency on what courses transfer as degree applicable to specific universities. ACD, along with Austin Community College.
ACD and Austin Community College established the South & Central Texas Transfer Compact. The compact is an intentional, unified partnership committed to increasing the number of students transferring. This compact originated with 7 universities in 2016 and has grown to include 20 universities in 2021. The compact includes 7 San Antonio area universities and 13 state level universities. The use of TAGs have demonstrated successful outcomes with a decrease in time-to-degree from 4.6 years in 2015 to 3.76 in 2021 and a decrease in average semester credit hours for a 60-hour degree from 92 in 2015 to 78.6 for all students and to 65.1 for native students in 2021.

Which one or two theme(s) best describe the presentation? Transfer Credit / Prior Learning , Academic, Institutional and External Partnerships

What Professional Application does this sessions apply to? This presentation will identify and discuss transfer challenges for our student population ranging from: financial constraints (excessive hours due to core and Field of Study (FOS) courses not transferring as degree applicable), length of time for degree completion, and Transferability vs. Degree Applicability.

Presentation Begins:

Tuesday, July 12, 2022 at 12:10 PM Eastern Time

Presented By:

Angela Guadian-Mendez, Alamo Colleges District
Stacy Ybarra Alamo Colleges District